How to Improve Your Brain Health and Stay Sharp as You Age with Dr. Ryan Williamson

Leaving space for yourself is such an important thing that people just don't even think to do because we get swept up in the pace of modern society and you know, the. I think the technology curve is a bit of a double edged sword. So more information than ever, but higher pace, higher expectations, that actually contributes to a great deal of cognitive stress.

Welcome to the Happiness Squad podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspirations through to help you operate at your fullest potential by integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. In each episode we will share insights, tips and stories from leading experts, company executives and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge and find more success, joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Hi dear friends, thank you for joining us for the Happiness Squad podcast today. Joining me is Dr. Ryan Williamson, a board certified neurologist and founder of Transcend Health and a proud Navy veteran. Ryan has dedicated his career to bridging neuroscience with entrepreneurship, helping leaders, high performers in organizations optimize brain function for for better decision making, resilience and longevity. Think about it. The brain is the engine behind everything we do. What if you could fine tune it to perform at your best, not just for today, but for decades to come? In this conversation, we unpack the cutting edge of brain health and discuss some practical ways to prevent cognitive decline and help you add life to your years. Ryan shared a set of practices around sleep as well as some specific nutrients and supplements that we can integrate into our lives that make a big difference to keeping our mind sharp and energized. Let's dive in. Hi Ryan, it is so wonderful to have you on our podcast. Thank you for joining us this Friday morning.

Thank you, Ashish. I'm happy to be here, seriously.

So you know, Ryan, your background is really fascinating. You know, when Amber, a dear friend of ours, connected us, you know, you were a neurologist, you were a Navy veteran, and then you founded Transcend Health, right? You've also done some work in corporates as a consultant. And I'm curious, right, in your journey, like, what's drawn you to the intersection of brain health, longevity and performance optimization?

That's a great question, Ashish. So I think like a lot of people that end up in healthcare, I've got a pretty similar story to many other folks that feel called into the service of helping people, whether they're nurses, doctors, providers. But I watched a lot of people suffer when I was younger, so, I mean, I had a lot of family members when I was a kid and just watched a lot of people deal with a lot of medical issues growing up, and that certainly inspired me to go into medicine. So that was the original impetus. And once I got there, I had some great mentorship and found neurology, which I just loved. You know, I think at. At the time, other than just my sheer fascination with the human brain, which I still very much hold near and dear, it seemed like it was going to be an exciting field to be a part of over a career. And so far, that has proven true because of just all the things that we are constantly learning about how the brain works and how to optimize performance, how to optimize your health. And when you're trained as a neurologist, you know, you certainly can help younger patients with things like migraines and maybe, I don't know, peripheral nerve injuries and inflammatory conditions, things like this. But a good chunk of it are problems that happen in our later years, so. Problems like Alzheimer's and strokes and Parkinson's and. I mean, these are issues that affect millions and millions of people.

Yeah.

And I. I got to a point where I. Well, when I was in the military, I was still helping younger crowds. That was very motivating to have a bunch of, you know, young, healthy, motivated people that just. Their. Their mission was go get back on the battlefield and go help. And boy, if that's not the most motivating work environment, I don't know what is, but that's what got me out of bed every morning. But when I. When I left the service in 22 and went back to civilian practice, I started seeing more of the older patients dealing with a lot of these. These chronic issues. And I really. She's got to a point where I didn't feel like I was making much of a difference. And that might sound strange, and it certainly is gratifying to help somebody through an emergency or a problem or help get them answers. But I just. I see the same story play out time and time again where I know that decades of untreated high blood pressure or the wrong lifestyle or the wrong diet or whatever has gotten somebody to this point, and that they're. They're very likely going to continue to keep dealing with these same issues, or there's been a series of events that has started that has. That has put them down a really an irreversible path. And it's.

It.

It's very sad to watch that happen time and, you know, time and time again. So I started to ask myself, you know, is. Is there a Better answer or how can I help more people? And so I dove into this longevity literature which has been, I mean, there's just been an explosion of, of new studies and information in the past, not just several years, but decade or so. And it turns out a lot of this stuff is actually quite preventable in most cases. And so that got me very fired up to say, all right, how can I help people live a healthier life? Start earlier and how can I reach more people? Because as much as I love doing podcasts and interacting with people one on one or seeing patients one on one in a clinic, you know, if you wanted to reach the maximum number of people, if, if no one watched your podcast and it was just a matter of talking to people one on one, that wouldn't be the most efficient way to do it. Right. And so I can't, I can only see, I don't know, 10, 20, maybe 30 people a day in a clinic or a hospital. And that's not the most efficient way to reach people. So I had this idea that I wanted to go write a book and I ended up reaching out to our friend Amber, who helped me with that. We ended up creating a business and scaling. And so my, my idea is to just help as many people as I possibly can. Understand that they are largely in control of their health outcomes. And that's. If you're listening to this and part of Ashish's audience, I really want you to know that, that, that you are, I mean, 70 to 90% of all your health outcomes, your, your mental performance, how you feel is well within your control. And I have found a lot of people just don't know that they, they feel that this is going to be some inevitable thing they've got to deal with down the road or that they fear that, oh my gosh, my grandmother, my grandfather had, you know, Alzheimer's or stroke. I'm destined to have that, then that's probably not the case. So.

Well, I think there's so much resonance from all the work that we've been doing and the research, I think so number one, I think it's amazing to see that there's so many people who are high achieving professionals. They basically are spending out of their health account to accumulate wealth and then they spend out of their wealth account as they get into retirement to, you know, basically get, override some of these health outcomes and sometimes it's too late. You know, I loved Peter Attia's Outlive another book, Friends. If you haven't read that, I would highly Recommend that talks about how, frankly, also our medicine, our medical, you know, profession, at least in the west, is so towards fixing symptoms and solving symptoms. You know, one particular thing that at least for me was so eye opening and actually quite both infuriating but also empowering right. At the same time was, you know, earlier, so later last year, around November, right. I officially. My A1C went above 6.5. So now you're a diabetic. But, you know, when I had read the book, what was really. And I just started reading it around October, November, and I was blown away by the fact that I had, you know, the last two to three years, I was at a 5.1 and then a 5.7 and a 5. And the doctors only just said, yeah, you should watch for it. When, you know, if you're at a 5.1, you are predestined to get there unless you make pretty dramatic changes to your diet, to your exercise, you know, how you sleep. And if you do that, you never need to get there and just get on pills and to talk a little bit about how dramatic some of these shifts can be. December 24th, I decided that I was gonna actually make that shift. It was March, and my A1C is much lower. I've lost £15. And it's all been through diet and exercise. Right. I did not get on metformin or the diabetic pill. So, no, it's very much in a resonance. And I think if we can educate people more about our own kind of thinking and help them recognize that actually, number one, you are in control. You can be in control and stop sowing the seeds of your illness to prolong your suffering. You know, because the reality is, science is advancing every day. We are going to live longer. Kids born today are going to live into their 90s. So the question is, do you want to live the last 30 years of your life suffering today, one in 60 plus have at least one chronic ailment. Right, right. That they're struggling with. Do you want to live that life or do you want to actually live a healthier life? Decline is not a given. And so I'm really curious to, you know, from your research, learn a little bit about what you've learned. Right. There's so many people who take for granted that as I get older, I am actually, you know, my brain, my memory, my thinking, everything is going to decline. But you talk about this notion of proactive cognitive optimization that, no, we don't have to. We don't have to be a prey to that so talk to us a little bit about that and what's really been missing and what are some ways in which you're helping people.

Ashish, first off, this is gold and thank you for the courage and the transparency to share your journey. That's not easy to share what you go through on a personal level. And a lot of people I think are very guarded about that. So thank you for having a voice and yeah. Other people through your story because there's power in that. And I, I think Dr. Attia is a fantastic resource and probably one of the most rigorous MDs that I know of that is public facing certainly, and is able to provide this kind of information to people. So I'm very thankful for him. And, you know, the Andrew Hubermans of the world, if anybody's familiar with Professor Huber. Yeah, his work. Because you, you said all of it. I mean, it comes down to lifestyle. And I think when we are all so busy and we're worried about, you know, I've got to get to work and I've got to make my spouse happy and the kids have got to go to practice and, you know, my parents are sick and I've got to, got to got it right. We're all, that's the world we live in. And when people hear, even if they read a great book like outlive by Dr. Attia, even if they hear, oh yeah, I mean, I've got to get my A1C in check or whatever it is, it feels like one more thing that they have to do.

Yes.

I think that can be very defeating for people because they're like, I'm just so busy and I'm so overwhelmed trying to get through my day. Like, how in the world can I possibly fit in, you know, one more metric thing, habit, whatever. And I think that's where a lot of people miss the mark. It's not that you have to add one more thing to do, it's that the question you should be asking yourself is what's really important to you? What's your why? What's your purpose? What truly gets you out of bed in the morning? What makes you happy? Happiness squad. You know what, where is that center point for you? And it could be something as simple as wanting to watch your grandchildren graduate from high school. It could be your business, it could be the legacy you want to leave. I mean, there are any number of things and it's different for every single person I talk to, but I try to help people get that thing in focus in their mind and that Way, once you've really found your, your purpose in life, your why, then you go, okay, well I'm naturally going to want to move towards that thing. I have my target. So then you reverse engineer a plan and a life around getting you closer to whatever that thing is or if you have it, to more of it or doing more of it. And as you said, I think children born today have the greatest opportunity to, you know, with, with technology and AI and all the, you know, the, just the exponential technology curve that we're seeing of living longer and even maybe pushing that into, into triple digits, depending on who you ask, in terms of average lifespan. But then the question becomes, okay, these are all things I want, so how, how do I get that or how do I do that? And then the I have to's become, I get tos. It's like, no, I, I, I get to, you know, live this integrated, healthy lifestyle because I know that if I am intentional about the nutrition plan that I have. I don't like the word diet, by the way, because this just sounds restrictive and limited. And people go on diets and they maybe lose some weight or they, they tune up their metabolism, they go right back to where they were, if not worse. But you know, I, I get to have the right nutrition plan. I get to be intentional about my movement, my exercise. And when you start thinking this way, I mean, you feel better, you have more energy, your sleep's better. As you said, you, I mean, you, you just, you see the world through a totally different lens. And I can tell you from having done it both ways, I mean, I choose this all day and it is so empowering. So that's kind of my general framework, I guess, and we can dive into specifics.

Yeah, no, I would love to. And you know, actually, you know, I want to highlight for our listeners. That's why, I mean, I actually looked at, you know, what you've started and I want you to talk a little bit about transcend health because there are certain aspects of it that I think are so, so powerful around helping people shift because even when I know it's hard to stay on the path. So talk a little bit about transcendent health and what you're trying to do. There's.

Thank you, Ashish. So this whole idea of transcendent health started as me wanting to just write that book to go help more people because of what I, what I was tired of seeing. And along the way, my team and I have come up with the idea of, well, how, how do we, how do we get this message out to more people sooner. And so we have obviously social media and I try to do little snippets here and there that can help people. But I, I also have a membership where I have a, these group coaching sessions or do bi weekly zoom calls. And so I'll talk about a given. I call them sort of wellness protocols. But you know, it'd be all right, here's, here's what sleep is and It's a quick 15 or 20 minutes on, on how, how sleep works in your body and why it's important. And then we spend I don't know, maybe another 30, 40 on, on how to optimize sleep. And people have that as a protocol and then we discuss. And then they've got access to this private membership portal where they, you know, they can watch past recordings, they can download the protocols, what have you. But there's also a community and there's accountability and people do exactly what you're doing. They, they share their wins, they go, man, you know my, I, I started wearing an aura ring which is my preference. But you know, there's Apple Watch, whoop and whatever, some sort of sleep tracker. And I watched my sleep go from this abysmal sleep score cause I was staying up late and I was reading on my phone and I was, you know, drinking to help me fall asleep and I was eating late and just whatever, like all the wrong things and they start to get that stuff in order and then they watch their sleep data improve and they feel better and then they wake up and they perform better and they share all these ideas with each other and it's this almost contagious, you know, positive effect, right. And it's this whole idea of, you know, you're a reflection of the five people you spend the most time around or however that goes. But when, when you have a community of like minded people, they're all interested and engaged in supporting one another and improving their performance and improving their health. I mean it is, it's one of the most gratifying things I get to watch and be a part of. So that's been really fun. And that's, we've got that community. I do some shorter versions of that where if it got, you know, kind of a pre scripted course that people can just sign up for as rather than an ongoing thing. It's just a one time course. I've got a shorter cohort where I take people through my book chapters, you know, one at a time and sort of give them a primer on all this kind of stuff and there's some one on one coaching I do which is, you know, I mean if people are interested.

But you know, Ryan off transcend health, I love the asset. There was a couple of aspects that really stood out for me and I think the first one, the first and foremost was this notion of community. You know, we have a community that we formed as part of Happiness Squad because again, you know, today the reality is Ryan, I'm curious to get your take on it. This is kind of my perspective which is I think we have more knowledge today than you know, and not just a little bit more like thousand x more access to knowledge. We know what to do. Right. So it wasn't that I didn't know that sleep is important and meditation is important and you know, drinking is bad for you. I mean there's all over the place, right. The problem is we don't have space for practice. So knowledge is just noise today. Right. And that's, you know, one of the aspects about the community that I really love. Because you know, if, if you connect to your why, what's your why? By the way, all the research validates this, right? A more positive why I want to be there for my grandkids. Marriage is a lot more motivating why than I don't want to die. Right. All the research proves that. So if you know your why, but even then to stay on the path, having a community, you know, in every wisdom tradition there is this concept of a sangha, a group that gets together. You know, we go to church once a week. Why do we go to church once a week? We can pray at home, but we go to church because there is people that we can connect with that allow us and remind us to walk the path. Right. Muslims go to mosque, Hindus go to temples, Buddhists have all these Sanghas that you're a part of. And so I think this notion of really building a community where people can learn from each other, inspire each other, can be held accountable to walk the path in, in the end to help them over time become, you know, so our habits that we start to form initially they are things we do, but then to over time they become it. But I think that is so, so beautiful and I'm so glad that you actually started that way already with Transcend Health, Ryan.

Thank you. Ashish it, like I said it, it is truly a beautiful and a gratifying thing to experience. And you said something that really resonates with me and that's creating the space for us to be able to intentionally think about these things and practice them. And that's another, like this gets into kind of how I, how I tackle or how I help people tackle their, their stress. But leaving, leaving space for yourself is such an important thing that people just don't even think to do because we get swept up in the pace of modern society. And you know, the, I think the technology curve is a bit of a double edged sword. I mean, here we are doing this amazing thing. You're in Colorado, I'm in Georgia, we're on this Zoom or Riverside FM call through a video screen. It's virtual, right? We have this high speed Internet. I mean this, this would be unthinkable 30 or 40 years ago, right? Or maybe just at its infancy. But to have it be mainstream and have us all do it is just a marvel of technology. And along with that, you know, the advent of the Internet, of course, and you know, the supercomputers and quantum computing and AI, all the things that are coming. So more information than ever, but higher pace, higher expectations. And when you think about again, that sort of bouncing from thing to thing about getting the kids and going to work and more emails and tasks and notification overload and all that stuff, that actually contributes to a great deal of cognitive stress. There's actually a term that's been invented for it called technostress, which I love, I love technostress.

Tell me about technostress.

Technostress is this general term for the stress that technology imparts on our, on our brains and our minds.

Absolutely.

And again, back to this idea of community. You know, we, we really evolved in tribes and groups and our neurobiology is centered around relationships and around being a part of a community and feeling safe. And there also wasn't this degree of, of technology around the time that our brains evolved. And so our, our social and our technological evolution has really outpaced our biological evolution. And we're just taking in too much all the time without leaving the space to process it. And so we constantly feel overwhelmed because naturally we're not, you know, we're designed to ebb and flow. I mean, your brain's designed to work optimally in about 90 minutes at a time. And then it really does need a break before performance falls off a cliff. So every 90 minutes I tell people, hey, you know, if you're at work or wherever, step away from your desk, stand, stretch, move, go outside, get some fresh air, meditate, do breath, work, what, whatever you like to do, but get away from the screen and push away from the information that's that's just a daily rhythm. And if your boss has a problem with that, I would be more than happy to share with them information on how much more productive people.

No, it's crazy, right? Like we know this night. Like this is something we do a lot in our programs too, which is we know over 90 minutes your ability to pay focus goes down significantly. We start accumulating stress, right? There is this Microsoft study that shows when they put sensors on the brain, how the brain can literally go red versus even little breaks. Five minutes can keep you functioning optimally. And yet most executives I work with are in back to back meetings all day long.

So learning how to structure your day. And again, as busy entrepreneurs, business owners, you know, most people see an empty space on the calendar and they fill it, right? That's, that's just the habit. So I think learning to leave protected space for yourself, protected space off, you know, time to think, time to reset, time to be with your family, time to be alone with your thoughts. These are all really important things that I think we, we need to understand and, and, and practice, quite frankly, and do. And, and again, it's not, it's not just about your performance. That, that, that's, I mean, that should be reason enough that you just, you, you feel better, you perform better. But chronically this, this leads to more stress. And stress is not just a cognitive symptom or a mental symptom. It's actually a, a reflection of the physical changes that are happening in your body. So when you feel stressed chronically, you have elevated stress hormones like cortisol, for example, that, that are released and over time, cortisol actually leads to impaired fasting glucose. So that can increase your risk of diabetes. Right? And it can make you more metabolically unhealthy or unfit. You can have more insulin resistance. So now it's harder to lose weight. I mean, you could be trying, trying, trying and eating the right things and doing the right things. But if your tissues are insulin resistant, you're just your, your metabolism slowed down and it's, it's not going to be as effective. You know, sleep helps with that and taking the breaks help with that. Cortisol over time also raises your blood pressure and so high blood pressure can lead to things like heart attacks and strokes down the road. There's this kind of new anecdote that, that Alzheimer's is like type 3 diabetes. It's a little more complex than that in my opinion, because there are some other factors that role, but certainly this, this idea of impaired fasting Glucose and metabolic health of, of the brain is, is imperative. I mean it's imperative if you want to lower your risk of dementia. So th, this is all interrelated and I mean it, it's. These pillars are, are like so basic that people I think, overlook them. I mean, just this focusing on your sleep, your nutrition, exercise, stress management, those are like my core four, which I'm, I'm sure Dr. T and other people talk about too. Cuz that's where the bulk of the data lies. But again, in today's world, I think people are just, they're, they're so busy that they're looking for that quick fix or the life hack or the biohack and they go, ah, you know, just shoot me up with stem cells or I wanna take this pill or maybe some Ozempic and, and which Ozempic, by the way? Without the right dosing and strength training and protein intake that you, you lose more lean mass, not fat mass. So you come off of it, you're even more insulin resistance.

I mean, people just need, There is a lot there. Yeah, so let's get into that. Ryan. Right. Obviously all of your research, all of your training over a long period has been around brain. You talk a lot about brain resilience, right? This ability to protect and even enhance cognitive function. So talk to me a little bit about what have you found? Are some of the biggest drivers, the key drivers behind brain longevity.

Yeah. So back to those core four pillars. That's really, those are the, those are your four.

So sleep, nutrition, stress management and exercise.

That, that's it. And that sounds so simple, but it is, it is so profound. And the reason these, these four are profound are that to me, A, they're, they're easy and they're part of an integrated lifestyle. But B, this is where the data lies and this is, this is what really moves the needle when we look at actual changes on a cellular level. So there's this kind of whole, I guess, categorization of disease we call the hallmarks of aging and staging are all molecular and chemical pathway changes that occur on a cellular level. Because when you really break it down, you know, you're sure your, your neurons are brain cells and hepatocytes are liver cells, cardiac myocytes, heart muscle, blah, blah, blah. But when you look at the machinery of each cell, they're all very, very similar. And they all have, I mean, I don't know if people know this, but every cell in your body contains DNA to make your entire body, to make you, you. They're just, they just all end up with different jobs down the road, so to speak. And so they all run on the same basic machinery and your cells can age at a faster rate or they can age at a slower rate. And if anyone's heard of Brian Johnson, he's a guy out there who's kind of been the front runner of, of trying to figure out, slow down his rate of aging. So he's, he's become pretty popular lately and is apparently doing a pretty good job at it in terms of all the things he's added in. But I, I want people to understand that there's a difference between their chronological age and, and this kind of newer concept of, of what is called a biological age. And in my opinion, the tests aren't perfect yet, but they're, we have developed some fairly accurate metrics for how to assess this. And one of these is this idea of something called DNA methylation. And so what is that? Well, methyl groups are these little kind of markers that get tagged to your DNA to help your cells understand what, what can be read and what not. And they're different patterns on everybody's DNA. Hence this methylation pattern that's as kind of high level as I can explain it. And this is relevant because at different ages through somebody's lifespan, that methylation pattern looks a little different. And so when you look at large numbers of people as that pattern changes across the lifespan, you know, if you're say, I don't know, like I, I'll be 37 in a few days. So say for the average 37 year old, right, if you took a cheek swab and sent my cells off and my methylation pattern looked more like a 50 year old, that probably means my cells are aging too fast, right? If I'm doing kind of the wrong things, if I'm chronically stressed and maybe I've got some pre diabetes and I'm smoking and I'm not exercising and doing all that. Whereas if you do prioritize all the four that we talked about and you're doing all the right stuff, your methylation pattern might look younger. And I've had tests that have put me anywhere from 28 to like 32 or 33. So which again, I don't, I don't get hung up on that number. I'm not like, oh great, I'm 28. I mean like, I don't, I don't really believe that, you know, I'm, that it's that, that accurate or that, that important. But the idea is that you want to be allowing yourself to age at a slower rate because this translates to not just how much longer you live, but again, how long you live well and how long you get to do the things you love with who you love. And that's, that's what it's all about to carry your impact forward in the world. And that's, that's really what I want. For people.

Enjoying this podcast, if so, you will be excited to know that Happiness Squad is launching a free online community on International Day of Happiness March 22. This is an opportunity for listeners like you to integrate the nine hardwired for happiness practices that exist in every wisdom tradition and are backed by scientific evidence from the fields of psychology and neuroscience into your daily life and rediscover your well being, balance, purpose and connection. Check out the details on our website or drop us an email. Excited to see you in the community. Yeah, I mean, it is a given that we are going to have longer lifespans than our ancestors. But friends, I will make this bold statement right? It is also a given that your health span is gonna bring you more suffering in your later years because you're living longer than our ancestors. So we're gonna die miserable unless we actually make quite dramatic changes. Both of those are given. You know, medicine is keeping people alive way longer than nature would allow it. 20,000 years ago, if you groaned around in groups of 35 and you couldn't walk, there weren't that many people who could carry you and you would not survive. Today there are people who are on machines for two, three years in coma and they can be kept alive. So already from all the advances, we know we are going to live longer. Are we going to live healthier and are we going to live in a way that we are actually adding life to the years that we live? I would say it's not a question mark, it's a given. If we look at the level of stress levels in the workplace, I consistently see 40 to 60%. If you look at our burnout levels, it is a given that we are going to have lots of misery in the later half. And that's why, you know, a lot of the work, Ryan, that we are trying to do is all around helping become aware, become more aware of how our own beliefs about what it means to be successful, what it means to be happy, is actually making us really unhappy in the long term. So unless we have a paradigm shift around how we redefine success, how do we find joy and happiness, it's not gonna be out there, but it's actually within here so that we can really start to truly add life to our years. Not just in our older years but all through our life so we don't forget it.

That's beautiful, Ashish. I mean again you hit the nail on the head and we just wish there's so much alignment on this. And you're right. Happiness is internal. It is not an external thing.

It is not an external thing. Right? Yeah. And if you're not well, it's hard to be happy if you are literally, if you are not well, if you have, if you're struggling, you can't sleep enough, you have trouble walking around because of joint pains, you're taking pills as if they're food rather than food as medicine. Life is not good. So let's dig into, let's maybe dig into a little bit around sleep because I find it is. We are a sleep deprived nation. There is no two ways about it. And so talk to me a little bit. Let's deep dive there. Ryan, what have you learned from sleep and what are some simple three or four things that you invite? Those who are part of your community, who you're coaching. What are the moves that people can make to get better sleep?

Absolutely. So consider this from again back. I try to think of things from a design or even an evolutionary lens or standpoint and we sleep for about a third of our lives.

Right.

So think about the massive opportunity cost that that presents to an organism in terms of not just their productivity. Forget about being an entrepreneur for a minute and I could make how many more phone calls and sales or whatever in that timeframe. Right. But just the literal opportunity cost from a safety perspective. Right. I mean we, when you were living in tribes and you know, if, I don't know if a lion came up and grabbed a group member while they were asleep or an invading tribe came in. Yeah, just, just a natural disaster, a flood. I mean, think about that risk. I mean you're, you're rolling the dice a third of the time. You could be susceptible to any one of these things. Why would something like that exist for so long and be conserved? And the answer is that it's because it's that important. Right. And what I mean by that is that sleep is non negotiable. And I want people to know that not just for their brain health, but for the health of their entire body. Sleep is the only time your body repairs itself. Meaning that if you're sick or you've just had a really hard workout, I don't know if you're doing CrossFit or you just got into strength training or ran a marathon or whatever. The only time that your muscles repair themselves is while you sleep. Sleep is the only time that you consolidate and form new memories. So if you're a student or you're learning something new or doing a, I don't know, new, new classes online, whatever, you could learn all the, learn and read all the material you want. You're not going to store it as long term memory until you actually achieve quality sleep again. Your immune function, your metabolism, your blood pressure, I mean it, the, the list goes on and on. It, it's just, it, it is imperative for you to have adequate sleep. So that's baseline.

What's the optimal amount of sleep you find for people?

So this is an interesting one too. It, it ranges, it's, it's different person to person, but the optimal range seems to be somewhere between seven and nine hours. And you'll, you know, you have a pretty good sense of that. And, and this is honestly where a sleep tracker can be really helpful for people.

Yeah.

Cause you'll know where your, your sleep is optimal based on how, how often, how long you're sleeping and equally importantly, you know, whether, whether it's, I dunno, seven and a half, eight and a half. I mean, pick a number, whatever your number is. Sleep regularity is actually more important or seems more important than how long you sleep. And what I mean by that is not having an erratic sleep schedule where, I don't know, you're going to bed at 10pm one night and then staying up till 3am the next night. And what does our culture do? You know, we set an alarm Monday through Friday and we do the nine to five thing. Grind, grind, grind. Friday afternoon hits up, it's happy hour, time to blow off some steam. You know, one drink, tunes turns into four, four turns into whatever and then it's 3, 4, 5am you're eating pizza and now you're sleeping all day. Saturday, you're hungover, you're doing it again. And Monday rolls around and oh my God, I've got to start the cycle over. Right. This is a very familiar story for a lot of us, I think. So the reason I bring that up is that does not promote healthy sleep or sleep regularity. And not only does that ruin your week in terms of your performance, certainly your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. For people to feel like they've got to do it all over again to de stress and escape, but long term, it results in actually shortened lifespan and increased chronic disease. There's a really interesting study that was done on a population level. I think this was based on 2013 or 2014 data, but this was done through, through the state of Michigan. And they looked at the number of hospital admissions for heart attack. So for or it's called acute coronary syndrome, so heart attack or chest pain that related to, to heart problems. And this was 42,000 admissions. And they found that the Monday after daylight savings time. This is relevant because as you and I are recording, this day savings was just a few days ago. Right. The Monday after daylight savings there was a, about a 25%, 24% I think, but about a 25% increase in, in the admission for the presentation of heart attack or acute coronary syndrome. And you think well why does that matter? Well again there was enough of a, a population level shift in all of those metrics that regulate your heart rate, your blood pressure, so your autonomic nervous system, your quality of sleep that increased enough inflammation and change. And again in, in a pre existing population these were older people that had maybe some diabetes, some high cholesterol to begin with. So not sure healthy 20 year old athlete or something. But really proves an interesting point that sleep regularity causes enough of a change that it can be harmful to the body. And you know, we don't, you and I are in different time zones and we all travel and run our own schedule. So it's really hard to get this kind of data in one place. So anyway, that's that, that's another point on regularity I just wanted to hammer home for people. And what can people do? There's a whole bunch. One of my kind of favorite things I like to say is that excellent sleep starts in the morning and people go what in the world does that mean? There actually is some very quality data that your circadian rhythm which helps set your sleep. So this is like your natural pacemaker that you know it's time to be awake in the daytime and be alert. Also tells you hey, it's actually time to be asleep at night. So we have the sort of diurnal or bi daily rhythm. It's set by light. Again back to when we were living without lights, artificial lights, the sun woke us up and you know, when it got dark we'd get sleeping, fall asleep. So that's the circadian rhythm is key to that. And as I'm sitting here with you know, artificial light in my home office and you know, we're trying to make a studio look lit. Right. I mean that's, that's not the healthiest thing for your brain. So what can help that is achieving natural light early in the morning. And you only need about 10 to 15 minutes of that and a great way. One of the things I love that actually Andrew Huberman talks about is to get 10 to 15 minutes of sunlight in the morning when it's lowing sky, when it's nice and orange and red, don't go do that midday. That can actually harm your eyes because it's just too intense. When the UV index is higher but low angle actually primes that circadian rhythm to help keep you alert in the daytime, help keep you asleep at night. And that same light projects to a different region of the brain that helps regulate mood so you actually feel better. So not only do you know you're more alert, but it actually improves your mood circuits and it can help ameliorate anxiety, depression, things like that. So that's an easy free one. Another one that I love. And this kind of integrates the movement pillar with sleep. But a good solid morning exercise session can actually improve the quality of deep sleep overnight. And the idea is that again, when your body's undergoing that reparative function, right, repairing your, your muscles after a nice hard workout, you actually are allowing yourself to achieve better deep sleep when you, when you have a, a good exercise session in the morning. So those are two, like really easy early morning things people can do. I'm happy to keep going. I got.

No, no, no. I think this is, I mean, these are like, you know, they're simple. Right. But I mean, the other one, you know, I'm curious about, Ryan I always talk about is the role of caffeine.

Yes.

How long.

Yeah, right.

And how it has such a long half life. And you know, we are caffeinating up till 4pm and wondering why we can't fall asleep.

Bingo. So you nailed it. I tend to tell people about noonish. You could probably get away with maybe 2 or 3pm depending on how quickly or slowly you metabolize. I mean, some people know if they have two sips of coffee and they're just, they're wired all day, like you may be a slower metabolizer, whereas if you're, you know, a two or three cup person and it takes you a little while to, you know, turn the engine on, so to speak, maybe you're a faster metabolizer. But yes, caffeine has a very long half life. And this actually plays into the, the second kind of system that helps keep us awake or alert. And that's that's the, the adenosine system or the sleep pressure system. Process S is another way that's, that's sort of stated for sleep pressure. But throughout the day you have this neurotransmitter, this chemical in your brain that slowly releases and rises called adenosine. And when it crosses a threshold in the evening, you start to feel sleepy. So in addition to the light regulating the day, night dark light, the sleep pressure that rises kind of helps that initiate that feeling of sleepiness. And the reason I bring this up is that caffeine is an adenosine receptor antagonist, meaning it blocks the binding of adenosine to that receptor. So you're not slowing down the release of adenosine, you're just minimizing its effects. And so that's part of why people are, you know, caffeine, caffeine, caffeine, then they, they stop or they, they have that crash afterwards. It's cuz the adenosine, you know, comes kind of b. And there are some other mechanisms at play there, but just that's sort of grossly oversimplified. But the half life of caffeine is very long. It's about 10 hours. And so to your point of sheesh, if you're drinking, you know, a cup of espresso at 4 or 5pm or even like I did for a long time because I enjoyed it, a little espresso after dinner, right? This is common in European culture that is like horrific for your sleep and not the thing you do. But we again, we as a culture, like these are just things that people do and they just, I think they don't know or it's just habit, you know.

And what's curious about it, you know, Ryan, was when people drink, let's say, you know, it's again a habit, right? Talk about habits. So yes, you might like, you might have over time gotten into a habit of drinking a hot beverage. It just so happened to be tea or coffee and you might take a couple of them. So think about what if you just shifted after the first cup to a decaf, you can still get the taste, you're still getting the habit, but all of a sudden you're not putting caffeine into your body, right? And caffeine addiction is real, right? Just like anything else. Like, if you don't believe me, try giving up caffeine for two weeks and see what happens to your mood and your energy levels. Also see what happens after two weeks. But really I think it's, you know, we live into this the Environment we create and actions we do unconsciously start to shape, you know, and take away from even like the most powerful one ingredient that can, that is really, I think the foundation, which is sleep to almost all of our health. And yet today most people are not sleeping seven to nine hours, they're sleeping less than six. They are sleeping in all different kinds of time zones. Right. They're not sleeping at the same time. And that's a big issue, 100%.

And before we beat caffeine users up too much, cuz I, I, I am a fan of caffeine myself as I mentioned. I think it's a great tool when used appropriately. So if you're, you know, if you have, I don't know, one, one to two cups, I think my favorite would be like a freshly ground black coffee. So again I, I would stay away from the processed and refined sugars to put in the coffee for a lot of reasons because processed sugar is turns out not great for us. Creams again, you know, can in moderate amount probably okay, but that can, that can contribute to an excess amount of saturated fat which can lead to blood vessel problems, you know, like in the heart and the brain. But freshly ground coffee, not only does it taste great, in my opinion, it contains compounds called polyphenols that can help act as antioxidants in the body. Number one, it can actually be good for kind of anti inflammatory effect, which is great. But caffeine actually appears to be neuroprotective. So against Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, conditions like this, there actually are some data that support that it, it either delays the progression of, or the initiation of either of those conditions. So there seems to be some, some help there too, which is very interesting. When used appropriately.

When used appropriately in the right dosage.

Yeah, in, in the right time.

Yeah, at the right time.

You know, drinking a pot at midnight.

Exactly. There is so much here. Right. You talked about your four pillars that you've created, your programs around sleep, nutrition, stress and exercise. You know, we obviously talked a bit around sleep. If there is one other area that you would tell people that, you know, hey, this is something, you don't realize how big this plays. If you want to live longer, protect your brain for longer. What would that area be, Ryan?

Probably supplementation of some sort and you could say that could be a sub pillar of nutrition. But I really, I made it its own chapter in my, in my book that's coming out in September because I think it's that important and because it's, it, it can be Difficult to get the right supplementation in, in a, even in a healthy nutrition plan. And so if I had to pick like a top four or five that are all over the counter that have quality evidence that most people prepare, probably do more of or more with this is in no particular order. But a funny one that might surprise people is actually creatine monohydrate. So creatine is a powder that a lot of bodybuilders and athletes use to gain muscle and it in fact does that. It's, it's, it's one of the most well studied molecules across time on the planet. The safety profile is excellent in my opinion, does improve athletic performance. But there's actually newer data that's emerged on brain health and its ability to help the brain's resilience around oxidative stress, energy production, probably decreased risk of, of cognitive disorders and decline like Alzheimer's down the road. And there's even some emerging data on other organ systems too. And this all gets back down to that idea of the hallmarks of aging and the cellular machinery that we all kind of share between organ systems. So you can get creatine naturally from the diet. It's present largely in red meat. To be clear, I'm not like a carnivore diet person. And my general nutrition take is something like a whole foods or a plant based and, or Mediterranean diet. Don't get me wrong, I really do choice steak, so good filet or rib eye like once a month tops, I think is fine. But you know, don't I, I wouldn't do that three, four, five times a week. That's way, way too much saturated fat in my opinion, without fiber and other things that you need. But my point is that there is creatine in red meat. But in order to get the recommended dose, which is about 5 grams a day based on current, you'd have to eat an inordinate amount. Like you wouldn't even be able to do it. I mean it would be like pounds and pounds of meat to actually get that into your diet.

Yeah.

Hence supplementation can be, can be helpful. So five grams a day. Again, there's some studies that are looking at higher doses. Like for example in, in post traumatic brain injury recoveries. This would be like a really bad concussion. Up to about 20 grams a day for a short term seems like it can be safe and helpful and, and the jury's still out on whether, you know, larger doses for longer.

Okay, safe.

So that's, that's a great one that I take every day. That I think, again, people may be surprised if they notice a little boost in performance. But also, this is. I, I guess there, there are two big distinctions here I want to make just overall within. With any kind of healthy lifestyle, there's the performance aspect, right? So that's. Which is what we all feel. Meaning, okay, you, you sleep poorly. We all know you feel groggy and tired the next day, you can't perform, you eat the wrong thing. It doesn't agree with you that, that's pretty intuitive, but we don't have a sensor for Alzheimer's or diabetes or heart attack. Right? They just. Once we get to a threshold where these things show up, that's when we go, oh, man. Like, there's some clinical change when in reality. And the A1C is a great example of this. When you go from 4.5 to 4.9 to 5.1 to, you know, you don't. Like, you can't detect that. There's, there's no way of knowing that unless you're following a lab result. So to me, there's, there's the maintenance and the longevity phase too, that people don't really get the immediate reward of, like, oh, I feel better when I'm doing this. When in reality, you're, you're likely doing yourself a massive favor by, by doing all of these things as part of your integrated lifestyle. Again, that's the longevity front. You're. You're going to notice a difference in performance, I am sure. But I just, I want people to have that distinction and part.

So that's one. What are the other four that you would recommend?

Yes, um, yeah, so I'm going down rabbit holes here. Um, so magnesium is another one. So magnesium gluconate or glycinate, that's. Those are the two most bioavailable forms. Generally speaking, magnesium is a co factor for, I believe, over 300 enzymatic reactions in your entire body. So it's massively helpful and something that many of us are deficient in. And it's actually quite difficult to detect an adequate level based on the way magnesium stores work from your bones to your bloodstream. So you can have a blood level that looks normal when in fact you're quite deficient in your, your bones, which is kind of the big storage area. So 400ish milligrams for men, I believe, and 300ish milligrams for women, just based on body weight relatively, is the recommended dose. Can also help with sleep. So I take it at nighttime and actually have Noticed an improvement in my sleep. Whether that's placebo anecdotally or true, not sure but, but there is some data that actually helps with sleep. And again gen general cellular health. So that's two, three would be. So fish oil and then there, there are two types of omega 3 fatty acids, DHA and EPA. And there's all kinds of cardiovascular data, brain health data. Believe it or not, about 60% of your brain is fat and of that 60%, 40% of that fat is actually all DHA. So that, that's how important this molecule is.

Wow.

And I don't have the number in front of me, but it's for, for sure over 90% and maybe closer to 93 or 95. But that's the percentage of Americans that are estimated to be deficient in omega 3s for what that's worth. Because we don't get a lot of fish in the diet. Don't, don't get a lot of healthy nuts and, and places where you can actually achieve omega 3s. That's where supplementation can be helpful. 1500 to 2000 milligrams a day as long as you get the right ratio DHA to EPA and even there's data up to up to 4000mg a day that can be healthy in terms of optimizing your, your vascular function, your, your, your brain health, your brain good, good fat for your brain, that kind of thing combined with fish oil, which you can take it as a separate supplement but there have been studies that looked at both. Vitamin D is actually incredibly important. Most of us can get an adequate amount by about 10 to 15 minutes of just midday sunlight exposure. But again fair skinned folks more like me that you know, walk outside and turn red kind of thing gotta be a little more careful. Whereas if you have more, more you know, melanin in your skin, you're darker. It's, it's probably gonna take longer to achieve that. But again most of us spend so much time indoors all day, supplementation is probably helpful. And combining fish oil with vitamin D has actually been been shown to have cognitive benefits long term, which is pretty cool. Um, so that's four and then my fifth is curcumin or turmeric. Uh, so this is a plant root extract and I was actually surprised when I started digging in on this one but the data are actually pretty compelling in terms of lowering all cause mortality. I bet somewhere around 10 to 15% lowered like risk of dying of anything because of the anti inflammatory effects and the pathways that it activates in the body. So those are just five over the counter easy things that are non prescription that people can take that actually can really move the needle on health across the board as a fifth pillar maybe.

Yeah, I love that. Well, Ryan, listen, this has been incredibly informative, my friend. I love what you're doing. I love and I, you know, I wish more doctors and more researchers really started helping shift meditation from, you know, symptoms to preventative and helping people much earlier start to build these habits. Because really, as I said, I think we have a massive, massive, you know, we are like facing this time where we're going to live longer and we can avoid suffering in our later years and it's in our control. I go back to what you started with, 70 to 90% of our experience internally and of our body. Right. What we do is in our control even and knowledge is not enough. So thank you for what you're trying to do to heal our world, heal the population, anything we can do to support we are here. We'll probably have you back when you, when your book comes out to share some more tips around some of the other pillars. But thank you for joining us today.

I would love that, Ashish. It's been my privilege and I would love to come back. Of course, I would love to stay in touch in the meantime. So it's been a joy and I just, like I said, just here to help. So thank you for having me.

Take care. Have a wonderful day.

You too, Ashish. Thank you.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us. Review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week.